Course Content and Outcome Guide for WR 123

Course Number:

WR 123

Course Title:

English Composition

Credit Hours:

3

Lecture Hours:

30

Lecture/Lab Hours:

0

Lab Hours:

0

Special Fee:

Course Description

Uses extensive research writing to develop skills in critical analysis and documented argument. Students synthesize their considered response to designated text(s) and/or issues with the reactions of other writers. Includes paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, and documenting using style appropriate to discipline researched. Prerequisites: WR 122. Audit available.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Outcomes for this course require working through multiple drafts of several pieces of writing with time to separate the acts of writing and revising; in addition, the reading outcomes require time to read, reread, reflect, respond, interpret, analyze, and evaluate. Upon completion of WR 123 with a "C" or better, student will be able to:

• Successfully organize and manage an extended, research-based, thesis-centered essay of 3500-4000 words or an equivalent in shorter essays using MLA, APA, or other appropriate documentation styles

• Demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving in the context of research by showing observational skills, drawing reasonable inferences from a variety of sources, perceiving and establishing relationships among multiple sources, and analyzing the structure and organization of sources and own writing

• Independently locate, examine, select, evaluate, and use various sources, including electronic sources

• Practice and demonstrate skills necessary to research writing, such as paraphrase, summary, and use of direct quotation

• Articulate own problem solving process and self-assessment; demonstrate the ethics of research by identifying and avoiding plagiarism

Outcome Assessment Strategies

Reading and writing assessment tasks will include the following:

• At least one research-based, thesis-centered, appropriately documented essay of 3500-400 or an equivalent in shorter essays

• Class discussion

Other assessment tasks may include the following: • Study questions and exercises to support the techniques of research and research-based writing

• Research journal used as a foundation for the research project

• Responses to assigned text(s), in or out of class

• Oral presentation

• Group collaboration and participation

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

• Examine and discuss issues of plagiarism, ethics of research writing, credibility, authority, and self-directed learning

• Advance the concepts of independent study and research, self-knowledge, and the ability to assess own work critically

• Engage in inference, analysis, synthesis

• Solve problems involved in an extended writing project

• Perceive, connect, and integrate a variety of sources and positions, and establish own ideas in such a context

• Experience research in terms of scholarship and audience

Competencies and Skills • Awareness of audience in the context of research writing

• Increased expertise in the process of research

• Proficient time management

• Engagement with scholarship and participation in a community of scholars

• A sense of responsibility for own ideas and progress

• Experience in applying skills and concepts of WR 121 and WR 122 in the context of an extended research project